Reported Origin

Last week, I asked what was the origin of the chequered flag to signify
the end of a motor race? The 'real' answer was given to me by one of my
motoring mates, Vic Garra, as I had tried last year to get an answer and
failed! According to Vic's research, the Americans claim the origin. I
quote, "One flag which is widely used today is the checkered flag. This
flag indicates that the racing event is over or concluded. It owes its past
to the ladies of small mid western towns. These townships would sponsor a
horse racing event and would have competitors come from miles around to
either race their horses or just watch the festivities. The town's ladies
would cook up huge meals and serve them on the race grounds. It has been
written that when the meal was ready to be served, the ladies would start
waving a checkered table cloth to indicate to the spectators and racers that
the racing was over and it was time to come and eat. The use of the
checkered table cloth carried over to when automobiles replaced horses and
somewhere along the way, the big meals on the grounds were no longer
prepared. But the checkered table cloth remained as the indication that the
race is over. It is used extensively today to indicate the Winner and a
Champion."

anonymous, 14 July 2005

"Origins of the chequered flagThe exact origins of the use of a
chequered flag to end races are lost in history, although there are many
theories. A possible though unlikely theory is that horse races during
the early days of the settlement of the American Midwest were followed by
large public meals and that to signal that the meals were ready and
racing should come to an end, a chequered tablecloth was waved. Another origin theory claim is that the chequered flag's earliest known
use was for 19th century bicycle races in France. A more likely
explanation is that a high-contrast flag would be more conspicuous
against the background of a crowd, especially when early races were run
on dirt tracks (and therefore dust reduced the driver's visibility).

A 2006
publication "The Origin of the Checker Flag - A Search for Racing's Holy
Grail", written by historian Fred Egloff and published by the
International Motor Racing Research Center at Watkins Glen, traces the
flag's origin to one Sidney Waldon, an employee of the Packard Motor Car
Company, who in 1906 devised the flag to mark "checking stations" (now
called "checkpoints") along the rally-style events of the Glidden Tour.

Use outside auto racingThe chequered flag has
become so well recognized that it is often used to indicate the
conclusion of many things unrelated to auto racing. For example, some
software installation programs display a chequered flag to indicate that
a computer program has been installed successfully. Chequered
flags were also posted at each corner of the end zones in the original
Yankee Stadium when the facility was used by the New York Giants of the
National Football League from 1956 through 1973."